Meat + Poultry - September 2005 - 69

FSI INSIDE THOUGHTS

Responding to bST fear

■

Throughout the past 20 years, the
food industry has found itself caught
in the midst of social movements, coordinated activist campaigns and a war over worldviews - and that's generally not a comfortable place to be.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the case
of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST),
a genetically engineered carbon copy of
a cow's natural hormone (bST) that increases
milk production. When it was first sold to
dairy farmers in 1994, who would've
believed that the controversy would still be
boiling more than a decade later?
Why this is so offers valuable lessons to
the food industry.
Farmers use rbST because it lowers
overall production costs, important in
today's tight market. It does so by increasing
milk-production efficiency and reducing
feed, water and associated wastes. The
science that rbST is safe for people and cows
is abundantly clear; milk from rbSTsupplemented cows is indistinguishable from
milk from unsupplemented cows. Milk and
dairy products from rbST-supplemented animals have been certified safe by U.S., Canadian and European authorities. Milk is milk.
But while the official science is clear, an
intense misinformation campaign has been
waged against rbST for 20 years. Similar
campaigns have a history of "success,"
whether by adding significant costs to industry, imposing burdensome regulations or
banning industry practices and products.
Having failed to hoodwink the FDA or
to spark a genuine consumer backlash,
anti-biotech activists switched to directly
attacking dairy-food companies. Inundating
companies with so-called "consumer complaints" has recently resulted in policy and
marketing changes at a number of major
processors. Either these processors were
convinced that there was a genuine groundswell of health concern among their customers, or they were seeking to avoid
further controversy and negative press
attention. Either way, prohibiting farmer
use of rbST only makes things worse.
Abandoning a cost-effective, safe tech-

2 FSI

FOOD SYSTEMS

ınsıder

SEPTEMBER 2005

nology implies to consumers that there were
justifiable reasons to reject it. And although
yielding to activist pressure may seem like
the easiest and quickest response, it may
well hurt the bottom line and only makes
the company a more attractive target.
Longer term, feeding the activist
machine hampers the overall industry when
it comes time to adopt future technologies
that improve production efficiency, quality
and food safety. Special-interest-group
demands to abandon productivity supplements like rbST, animal-health treatments
like antibiotics and feed-related requirements today will most certainly grow
beyond these specific demands tomorrow.
A company should never trust activistdriven complaints. They should rely on hard
data they themselves gather. If they find
consumers are concerned, their first response
should be to educate their customers. Explain why farmers use the technology and
the extensive scientific basis for its safety
and, in the case of rbST, its resourceconservation benefits. If you don't stand up
openly to defend a technology or practice,
you're saying you have something to hide.
Standing up for modern farm technologies
is not easy for individual companies, but
that's also why we have industry associations,
independent regulatory agencies and scientists - you are never alone.
The vast majority of consumers care
about fresh, safe, nutritious, affordable
food. Without prompting, consumers rarely,
if ever, mention farm production issues such
as rbST - unless they are the target of a
fear-based propaganda campaign.
The activist groups running the fear
campaigns do not believe consumers should
have real choice in these matters. They continue to spread misinformation and target
producers and retailers they view as vulnerable to their pressure tactics. The only way to
stop them is to stand up to them.
Alex Avery
Director of research and education
Hudson Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues

Alex Avery

In this issue...
Identifying
benefits . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . 8
The evolution
of words . . . . . . . . . . 10
FSI Numbers . . . . . . . . 14
FSI Insights . . . . . . . . . 14
Media Watch:
Reporting
to consumers . . . . . . 16
Insider on theWeb
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foodsystemsinsider.com

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Meat + Poultry - September 2005

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